Yin yang
by TobyKikami
Summary: Esplin 9466 gets what he deserves via angry ghosts. His uptonow loyal subordinate, Reizan 713, must decide if he should rescue him.


**Yin-yang**

As the limousine drove toward Sharing headquarters, Reizan noticed Visser One muttering incoherently.   
"What is it, Visser?"   
"It's nothing. Be quiet."   
Reizan 713 watched Visser One twitch and mumble in the front seat. "Are you sure?"   
Visser One turned and gave him a trademark glare. "It's nothing. Shut that Hork-Bajir beak and keep it shut!" He then turned back and continued his periodic spasms.   
Reizan sighed too softly to be heard by anyone but him and Shuyla and let himself sink into the dead black leather, still observing the Visser. His worry grew. Maybe someone poisoned the Kandrona rays-although Reizan was not sure of the exact science, he knew it was possible.   
Then, what were the things he saw usually, and now even more of them, faint shadows like butterflies flapping restlessly around the limousine and the Visser?   
Shuyla Marou was excited for some inane Hork-Bajir reason. The Andalite's doing it, I know he is, > she repeated, knowing that Reizan had long ago tuned out. He's going to break and then… >   
No, > he cut her off, he will not. >   
How would you know? >   
I just do. >   
Maybe it's the spirits. >   
Reizan sighed again. No, it is not the dead. There is no such thing. >   
How you know? > she demanded.   
I just know! > he shouted.   
So you really don't know, > she declared triumphantly.   
You shut up or I will make you sorry you ever were! >   
Shuyla was laughing in her designated corner of the brain. She knew Reizan. She knew him well enough to know he would do no such thing. He was too fainthearted. _You wavering, nerveless ignoramus…_ he muttered to himself.   
Shuyla continued. They are angry because he killed them. He killed a lot of them; they are out for him. Look, you even see them. Through me.>   
The limousine pulled up and circled around to the garage. The door dilated for them, and it slipped inside. Two minutes later, Visser One had demorphed and fumed off to his private quarters, Reizan to guard duty.   
Everything was fine. 

*** 

Esplin Nine-Four-Double-Six was troubled. He swept Alloran's stalk eyes here and there, growing even more tense when only the usual things were seen, half in and half out of the dark haunts of enigmatic shadows. He was not looking hard enough.   
Alloran was fearful, too, though he fervently denied it. The two of them stood in the center of the room. The only visible thing moving was the stalk eyes, twisting around and around.   
There is nothing, > Esplin muttered, to Alloran or himself, he could not tell. There is nothing, there is nothing, there is nothing… >   
He longed to get out of the private quarters, to the tremendous sleeping chambers of the Hork-Bajir-Controllers. They were all right there. Fifty to a chamber, and fifty could easily take down and kill six Andalites. They generally took care of each other.   
Nevertheless, how could he explain going there? _I am very sorry, but I thought there were Andalite bandits in my quarters, and I am frightened of them, so I will stay here for the night._ Even in his mind, it sounded pathetic. Like a human child.   
The Andalite hearts pounded with the bloody cobalt rushing through them. They stood there, watched the deathly quiet shadows of the hand-held Dracon beams tacked on the wall and the intergalactic torture equipment. Alloran thought of Jahar, death and Quantum viruses.   
And Esplin kept on muttering, There is nothing, there is nothing, no such thing as spirits, Hork-Bajir and human nonsense, it's nothing, nothing, nothing… > 

*** 

Reizan yelled and woke up.   
He cast a quick glance around the chamber. Nobody else awake that he could see. He breathed relief and lay back down on the Ramonite slab. A sleepy, ticked-off Hork-Bajir-Controller was something to be reckoned with.   
Shuyla was irritated, as well, until she noticed the details of the dream that Reizan had let slip. Then she was jubilant. See I told you it was the spirits. >   
There is no such thing, > Reizan protested weakly. He really was not in the mood for arguing, especially with Shuyla.   
When Estril still was, it was different. The entire chamber would stay up half the night playing games, many of them totally invented by Estril. They laughed more then. Estril laughed most of all.   
Estril was dead, along with his host. They hardly ever laughed together now.   
Reizan stared at the ceiling and then the wall, memorizing the exact pattern of the shadows in an effort to fall asleep. It did not work tonight, though. Instead, he began to feel-a little bit afraid.   
His dream had been about Shuyla's imagined spirits. In his dream, they had been real. They had chased him-him alone, as a Yeerk, not Shuyla. He had run down a long hallway-he knew he could not run, without Shuyla, but in his dream he had run. The spirits had always shrieked just behind him, never really catching him, just to prolong the horror. Until the end, when he had collapsed, sobbing in panicked terror, and then an ethereal hand twisted him around and he woke himself with his own screaming.   
"There's nothing," he told himself and Shuyla simultaneously, "nothing."   
Satisfied, he slept. 

*** 

There is no such thing as ghosts, > Esplin muttered again, no such thing. >   
Tell that to the ghosts. >   
Shut up. >   
Alloran was right. They were there, and he knew it. They were there.   
A delusion! > he yelled. They are not real! Only those empty-headed Hork-Bajir and humans would believe in them! >   
Not believing, despised Esplin, does not mean they are not there. >   
Do not call me that! >   
It was a doubtful point and he knew it. Again, Alloran was right, although Alloran was not entirely happy about being right.   
They do not exist, > he mumbled again. They do not exist. >   
Reizan in the limousine was right. Something was the matter. Something was definitely the matter. Esplin achieved the Andalite version of a gulp. He began to shudder, Alloran's tail gently vibrating. Even if there were no ghosts, he was becoming crazed, thinking about them.   
Dead people. If he had a twentieth of a promotion for each time he killed since he was "born", he would be Emperor now. He stared around the room again.   
They are going to get revenge on you, Esplin. >   
You, too. > Esplin tried the last tack. How many Hork-Bajir did you wipe out with the Quantum-One-Eighteen? I know there was a million at the least, before. How much did you get with that thing? Ninety percent? >   
Alloran didn't care. You shut up, Esplin. You have no right to criticize me; you have killed thousands more. >   
That is exaggeration, > he protested. Nevertheless, it very well could be true.   
_ You killer!_   
The words seemed to shred at him from within. He cried out, slumped Alloran over. They came, stronger and more hate-filled, dispersing from a thousand spirits.   
_ You killer! You killed me, you killed me, you jerk, and you killed me! You haven't got any right to live when we're all dead, you traitor, you…_   
He yelled again. The Andalite body fell into a semi-fetal position. Alloran said _we are gonna get you this time you fool_ yelled. At least he was scared. The pain bloomed inside him like a lethal flower. He reeled for the door, turned the stalk eyes around, and immediately regretted it.   
He reached it and he began to _focus focus focus focus_ pound against it, forgetting all about the keypad. All he had to do was enter the numbers. 6649. So simple.   
He screamed again, battered with Andalite hooves. Trapped _as you deserve to be _Alloran was in the Ramonite box during feeding times. Scream after pained scream tore out from the thought-speak centers of Alloran's brain. Then he remembered _Edriss Five-Six-Two, his former superior _it. He punched in the numbers with shaking Andalite hands. The door slid open, and he ran. 

*** 

Reizan was awake. He heard the shouts.   
It's the spirits. >   
We'll see about that. >   
He stumbled for the door of the chamber. Something held him back. Shuyla was afraid, and so was he. For a moment, he could neither go toward it nor back away. It was the renewed succession of cries that brought him to reality.   
Help me, somebody please help! >   
Reizan moved toward the door. It obediently slid open, and he moved out to the dim-lit, quiet as death main pool.   
What he saw, he would remember forever.   
Visser One was staggering toward him. Surrounding him were _no it couldn't be_ spirits, hundreds of them, clearer versions of the faint apparitions in the limousine, seething and hissing in a pale blue mass.   
Shuyla let out a shriek of combined fear and delight.   
HELP ME! >   
Reizan numbly took another step.   
It was far, far too late.   
Visser One began to, ever so slowly, sink into the spirit cloud. Reizan began to run forward, toward the monstrosity. He ran and ran, and finally was there. Only a single Andalite tail broke from the ethereal mob and whipped crazily.   
What to do now, he wondered.   
HELLLLLLP! >   
Too late really too late now.   
The tail vanished, leaving only blue mist. Reizan stared in disbelief.   
Help… > the echo of the cry lingered. Reizan shivered. He looked at the mist and _bet that if I rescued him he would reward me majorly course I would probably be dead too_ laughed morbidly.   
Reizan gulped and bent Shuyla toward it. He began to disengage.   
Shuyla was of course happy to see him go. Of course. 

*** 

Blind and falling. Falling down, down, falling, down…   
He felt something gritty against him. Reizan then realized he was not in the natural form of Yeerks.   
He was, for some reason, Hork-Bajir now.   
Reizan spent several minutes stunned and trying to make sense of it. He had detached from Shuyla, so how…   
It was not Shuyla Marou. He knew that much.   
It was male.   
He tested it. Just like Jara Hamee before Shuyla. Of course, he'd only had Jara for a little while, but still.   
Where was he? How could, in any universe, a Yeerk actually possess a Hork-Bajir body? There was no other mind. No other voice.   
Might as well enjoy it.   
Reizan took several strides forward before he realized where he was-or rather, where he was not. A thick fog enveloped him. He took a few experimental whacks with the wrist blades and decided it was real.   
HELP ME! >   
Reizan jerked. What now?   
Was this the spirit world? What was he supposed to do?   
He missed Shuyla. She would know.   
REIZAN 713 OF THE HETT SIMPLAT POOL, YOU WILL COME HERE AND HELP ME! > At least he was intact enough to order him around.   
Reizan plunged into the mist, into the general direction of the cry.   
He couldn't see, but for some reason, he wasn't worried. As he walked he began seeing patterns in the fog. _There's a Gedd. There's a Taxxon. There's a human. There's a Yeerk. There's an Andalite._   
It was when he was wondering if the patterns foretold his future or maybe something else, that one of the patterns came out of the haze. He knew who it was. He knew.   
"Estril!"   
"Don't be afraid, Reizan."   
Reizan blinked. One thing he knew Estril was not, and that was a Hork-Bajir.   
"I'll explain later. When it is time. What are you doing here?"   
"I…fell in." It was, in a way, the truth.   
"Come to rescue Esplin 9466?"   
Reizan spoke truth. "…I don't know."   
"If you have, I suggest you go back. They aren't about to let him get away."   
Reizan did not have to ask who "him" was. "What should I-"   
Another pain-wracked thought-speak cry reached him. He flinched, then made up his mind.   
He ran right past Estril, who made no attempt to catch him. He ran, Hork-Bajir feet pounding against an invisible ground. Just like in his nightmare. At least the spirits weren't chasing him. Yet.   
He burst through the fog, tearing full speed, always in the general direction of those cries. He imagined that very clearly, planned it.   
It was only when he was all but there that he realized he had no idea what to do next.   
Ignore Estril's warning and save Visser One? Choice A.   
Leave the spirits to do what they would? Choice B.   
Choice C, the sick one, the most appealing of them all, was to join the spirits in whatever perverted game they played.   
_You are crazy!_ he told himself. _Torture your own visser? The Andalites themselves would be repulsed!_   
Choice A? He had to laugh. Reizan was smart enough to know that there would be no reward. Visser One was not that kind of being.   
No time to _kill him_ decide.   
He was there.   
The spirits were even more numerous than he imagined. There were hundreds on hundreds, spilling over into thousands. Gedds, Mak, Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, humans were all represented. For some reason, there were no actual Yeerks that he could see.   
They were all in a circle, and in the center of that circle was Visser One.   
He had several bruises, but nothing looked too serious. He looked through the swarm at Reizan. All four Andalite eyes widened slightly. Then he was screaming again.   
In the name of the Kandrona, Reizan 713, help me! >   
Reizan took another step forward.   
"Do not take another step, Reizan Seven-One-Three of the Hett Simplat pool."   
He petrified on the spot.   
Edriss 562, the late Visser One, stood before him. Only… it couldn't be. He had never seen Edriss in this host before. Maybe the same thing happened to her. Maybe, when she passed into here, she had a new body. That explained why Estril had been Hork-Bajir, like him, and why there were no Yeerks in their natural form in the throng of ghosts.   
She seemed to take his silence as an indication to continue. "I would not advise you to attempt to rescue Esplin 9466. The others and I have waited long for this. We will not be denied."   
Reizan found his voice. "I wasn't intending to try."   
REIZAN HELP ME NOW! >   
"Ignore him." Edriss smiled in the way of humans. "Please do not speak to him. There is always the possibility that you will break the illusion."   
"Illusion?"   
"You see…" The smile widened. "He thinks he is in the fugue. He thinks. We have actually done very little to physically harm him."   
"Besides taking him here," Reizan dared to say.   
To his surprise, she laughed. "We finally gained enough united power to leave the Yin World, this world, and shadow him. He knew, of course. He was afraid. However, that was not enough to save him."   
She laughed again. For some reason, the noise hurt his ears. _What irony_. "So we took him here. To give him what he deserves. Not just Yeerks, as you can see. Many, many others." 

*** 

Reizan gulped so hard his throat hurt. "So what am I supposed to do, then?"   
Edriss smiled and grabbed him just below the elbow blade.   
His mind burst. He screamed as a mental knife entered his consciousness, no, it wasn't a knife it was his _just reward_ a complete toolbox, screw remover, wrench, and all; it opened every crevice of his mind like he had done with the Gedd and Jara Hamee and Shuyla Marou, only he'd looked at their memories afterward and it hadn't HURT so much as this; and he howled and seemed to be falling, falling, falling, tumbling into the darkness of the Yin world.   
"Reizan."   
Her voice was quiet but unwavering, and he held onto it. "W-what did you do?"   
"You're all right." _All right? ALL RIGHT? How could he possibly be all right after what she just did?_ "You have yin-yang eyes. You are all right. Sevrin, Hahn, Iniss 174, everyone else, if you agree?"   
The spirits began to murmur. He did not hear enough to realize. He only heard Edriss.   
"…all right. It is settled then." She spoke to him again. "Reizan 713 of the Hett Simplat pool, you are to go to the valley."   
"Valley? What valley?"   
"We will show you to there. You will be going with Alloran-Semitur-Corrass."   
He blinked and then remembered. "Not... _him_?"   
"No. In about one hundred years, maybe. Just maybe. Now watch."   
Reizan watched in fascination as a mist seeped from Alloran's ear. As it stopped coming, Alloran-_Alloran_, not Esplin- blinked and looked at him.   
I expect I am coming with you. >   
"I expect so, too."   
The mist took shape on the ground of the Yin world, becoming a Yeerk. Just a plain Yeerk. Nothing special.   
Reizan felt something ascend. He smiled at Esplin. "In a hundred years, maybe."   
"Now we'll take you to the valley."   
Shuyla could go there, too. She was already on her way. Jara, he was already there.   
Reizan 713 and Alloran-Semitur-Corrass were going, too.   



End file.
